


Make It About You

by honorbound



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 11:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11736558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honorbound/pseuds/honorbound
Summary: There should be a word for a threat that is also a promise.





	Make It About You

**Author's Note:**

> A Softer World prompt from @amazonplanet: There should be a word for a threat that is also a promise, because that is what I want you to hold me down and do (I love you)."

After Lovett moves to LA, the sun and the relentless parade of tanned, fit, beautiful people drives him indoors to hibernate. He can’t believe he actually misses the D.C. cesspool, the circling vultures that pass for Congress, the loud tourists at the McPherson Square metro stop. If he’s honest, the thing he misses most is the safety of being surrounded by people who already know him and still like him: the casual, easy touches that come from knowing someone a long time. He thinks of Favs slinging his arm around his shoulder on their way to the cafeteria, Tommy tapping his hand lightly while talking to get his attention. He misses being touched just to be touched, no reason for it, no need behind it. He finds himself staring at people from his car at stoplights, imagining if he was theirs how they’d turn towards him, what they’d do, how he’d slot into their lives. A weird hobby, sure, and a sad placeholder, but he needs something. He’s not making friends very quickly out here.  
  
—  
  
Once when he and Tommy lived together, they’d gotten home late from the bar at the end of their street and tumbled in a heap on their couch, Tommy still laughing at something Lovett had said on the walk home, their shoulders knocking together. He’d shoved Tommy over, maneuvering himself to the inside of the couch, braced by Tommy facing him. He remembered staring at the shadowed hollow at the base of Tommy’s throat and thinking maybe they could. Maybe. In the end, the air had cooled and Tommy gently pulled himself away and up, padded into the kitchen for water and brought Lovett back a full glass and a handful of aspirin.  
  
“Better take these”, he’d said. “Your head’ll split open tomorrow if you don’t”.  
  
—  
  
It’s dark when Lovett calls, late on the west coast, past midnight back in DC. Tommy picks up anyways, his voice that familiar blend of exhausted and overworked.  
  
“Lovett, hey! You  _do_  remember how phones work.” He hears the warmth in Tommy’s voice and finds himself smiling in response, helplessly curling into it.   
  
“Ha ha. Everyone’s got a bit now. Very nice, Vietor. Hang on a sec, I’m calling Hollywood Improv right now to see if they can work you in on a Tuesday 5:30 slot.“

“Shut up,” Tommy says fondly. “What’re you doing up? It’s late.”

“I had a date tonight. It was terrible, I was exponentially more handsome than him, to the point where I just felt bad, in general, for being so pale and chubby and Jewish and eclipsing his tan and veneers. All eyes were on me. It’s so hard to find someone who can keep up.”

He can hear Tommy snort softly, pictures him crinkling his eyes in response. “God, don’t let your humility hold you back, Lovett.”

“Yeah, well, if you moved to LA like you're supposed to, maybe I wouldn’t have to date these uniformly orange happy robot people and you'd be my only option. I could be kissing a buttoned-up WASP instead of these flaky pod people.”  
  
He says it lightly like a laughable threat, trying to goad Tommy into reacting. It’s the only way he can say it, naming the thing he wants most but cloaking it in flippancy. He’s said things like this before, thrown out as a joke late at night, his feet tucked under Tommy’s thighs as they sat on the couch with CSPAN droning in the background.  
  
Lovett can hear Tommy go still, the air falling silent over the phone across the wires from DC to LA. Lovett presses forward into the space anyways, damn Tommy and his sense of propriety and control, always trying to protect Lovett from himself as if he ever could.  
  
“Lovett.” Tommy’s voice is measured. “Don’t. Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

It’s sharp, Lovett can feel the edges catch his thin skin even on the opposite coast. He _does_ mean it, he always has, the trick is getting Tommy to believe it. The part that hurts is that he deserves Tommy's rebuff, he understands it. He’s the one who constructed the jokey brittle shell of himself; he should know by now that anything that leaks out would be treated with caution.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @vietorfever on tumblr, please come yell in my inbox at any time.


End file.
